Summary

During the last 4 years, more than 330,000 electronic drilling, completion, and intervention documents have been consolidated in a new document-management system, improving both their accessibility and future worth to the expanding base of users. The system’s document structure builds on earlier, engineer-led experience and has contributed to the new companywide standard for managing these documents. At the same time, the document-management project has eliminated more than 180,000 duplicate or obsolete documents. As part of the migration from the old system to the new one, common well names have been adopted to support integration activities within the wells' functional organization and the subsurface and operations communities. Directional surveys are key links between these communities, and over the same period, an in-depth, field-by-field review of the company’s UK directional-survey data has been conducted. This activity is now approximately 67% complete. Together, these activities are seen as essential preparations for the future, and they have already helped streamline some activities in both asset acquisitions and disposals. These tasks took time, but measured preparation plus a degree of pragmatism have ensured they remain manageable. Care has been taken to maintain the document folder structure so it remains familiar to users, while also taking advantage of the superior capabilities, such as search and assurance, available in the new system. The paper contains an outline of the structure and metadata and a description of the project’s goals and history, including some of the challenges commonly encountered in preparing, processing, and exporting and importing data. Details of the directional-survey data-verification process are also provided. This subject is of interest to many companies because of the scale of the exercise and the growing recognition in the industry of its technical and commercial importance.